THE LAST POINT: System or flair - what makes a coach?

Some call it a cult of personality, others see it as the only  way  teams or individual athletes can succeed is to have the right coach in their corner, guiding them to fulfill their dreams and taking all necessary steps to get the job done but managers are every bit the personalities nowadays that the top athletes are.

The thought leapt into my mind after I read a story on Curt Cignetti after last week’s NCAA National Collegiate Championship American Football Final. Curt who? That’s probably the reaction most of you are having but across the  pond, Cignetti’s is probably every bit as famous right now  as Donald Trump!

Cignetti isn't giving bizarre press conferences in Switzerland like Trump  but the coach has turned the University of Indiana, the team with, and I hate this Americanised word, the losingest record in college football into national champions in the space of two years as Indiana became the first team to record a 16-0 season.

But that isn’t what captured my attention but something that has now gone down in sporting lore - when Cignetti took the job in the unfashionable Indiana,  his reply to being asked how he would attract top quality players to Indiana is legendary as he simply said “It’s pretty simple. I win. Google me.”

In a sporting environment where braggadocio  is the default position, even this caught seasoned observers by surprise - a bit like Jim McGuinness suddenly rocking up to Fraher Field and proclaiming that Sam Maguire would soon be residing in Waterford, the GAA world would fall around the place laughing and send for the men in white coats to take care of Jim!

THE LAST POINT: SAME AMBITION BUT DIFFERENT PATHS

Thing is, two years after his proclamation, Cignetti did what he said he would - he won and his words seem like those of a prophet in the desert, the 'Google me' bit an added bit of flair as his words now seem to drip with  a self-belief that just can’t be matched.

So what did come  first for Indiana? Was it their coach’s belief that  attracted quality players to  Indiana, his confidence inspiring his players  or was it his work behind the scenes over the past two years  that provided the missing ingredient, extra-spark (insert whatever coaching metaphor you prefer here!) that turned his team into champions?

Lots of coaches come with systems or philosophies - Jose Mourinho is a defensive coach, Pep Guardiola lives and dies with his possession based attacking football while Ange Postecoglou and Wilfried Nancy were almost insanely all-out attacking at the expense of defensive structures.

Some coaches are all about inspiration, culture and intangibles but others are very much grounded in systems and structures but as much as coaches and managers deploy systems and structures, Kerry don't win the All-Ireland without David Clifford so is it the players or the coach that tips the scales?

Mick O’Dwyer and Jim Gavin sit atop the mountain in Gaelic Football’s Roll of Honour and Brian Cody the same in hurling and, lest there be any doubt, the tactical nous   of the trio, their legendary man management skills and all the other attributes that are needed to lead a team to ultimate glory were very much in evidence during their tenures at the top.

But would they  have achieved what they did without the players they were fortunate enough to manage, many of whom are up there on the Mount Rushmore of all time greats - Henry Shefflin, JJ Delaney, Tommy Walsh for Cody; Fenton, McCaffrey, Connolly, O'Callaghan, Brogan and more for Gavin and a litany of legends for O’Dwyer - Jack O’Shea, Pat Spillane, Ogie Moran, Paidi O’Se, John Egan, the Bomber Liston and Horse Kenneally. 

None of those list of players is anywhere near complete  but it gives credence to the notion that the team with the best players usually wins but we have also witnessed  managers transform a team from also rans into champions within a year or two.

In fairness, O’Dwyer achieved something remarkable in Kildare and Laois,  leading both  to Leinster titles  so that’s another plus in the Micko column as opposed to Cody and Gavin who have never shown one bit of interest in managing outside their native counties - and a bit of me says fair play to them.

That might seem as if I'm on the ‘players make winning teams, not managers’ side of the debate but how do you quantify the impact of   Jim McGuinness on Donegal? Regarded almost as a laughing stock when he took charge, McGuinness led Donegal to Sam within   two years, Michael Murphy, Colm McFadden, Karl Lacey and the McGees  breaking Mayo hearts in Croke Park? That he hasn't repeated that feat of winning Sam doesn't negate what he has achieved and continues to achieve.

We’ve had a version of that debate  in Leitrim over the years concerning the impact of PJ Carroll and John O’Mahony. Both men were larger than life figures, their contributions in taking a county that was firmly lodged in the lower regions of the gaelic football world to heights that seems unbelievable all these years later.

Both managers are regarded with respect but also differently - some describe Carroll merely as a manager who whipped his team into incredible shape and drove them, figuratively and literally, to places they never thought possible while Johnno is regarded as the more cerebral, the man who etched out those extra inches to achieve what Carroll could not, winning the Nestor Cup in 1994.

While there is a grain of truth in those legends, the opposite is also true  - PJ's work in transforming the mentality of a team that has been embarrassed by Galway in Salthill  the League of 1989 into an outfit that won promotion just four months later in the same league and went on to win an All-Ireland B crown speaks of a man who understood the psychology of the game very well.

Add into the mix the two  sides he guided to Connacht U21 Finals, famously beating Mayo and Galway in 1991 to claim the Cup and Carroll is so much more than some manic coach who relied on physical fitness above all else - he got Leitrim to believe when believing seemed like an act of lunacy.

O’Mahony’s genius was in man management, his ability to parse what an opponent might do was key in lifting the Nestor Cup in 1994. But ask any of the players of that era what the physical demands O’Mahony placed upon them and they’ll talk of debilitating sessions in the Forest Park or Strandhill so, suffice to say that O’Mahony was cut from the same cloth as Carroll when it came to preparing a team.

THE LAST POINT: HOLD OFF ON THE PANIC BUTTON

Both Johnno & PJ  made an incalculable impact on Leitrim football and what those teams achieved wouldn’t have happened without them at the helm. Both were, to paraphrase Mr Cignetti, winners but I’ll also assert that both men came to Leitrim  because they were well aware of the uncut gems playing for the county.

You had the curious mix of older statesmen like Mickey Quinn and, in the early PJ Carroll days, Ollie Honeyman and Shane Heslin, mixing with a crop of incredibly talented U21 players - Declan Darcy, Padraig Kenny, Aidan Rooney, Martin McHugh, Noel Moran, Seamus Quinn, Joe Honeyman, Fergal Reynolds to name but a few.

And then there was the bridge between the two camps - George Dugdale, Ciaran Mahon, Brian Breen, Gerry Flanagan, Paul Kieran and Liam Conlon, the lads in the middle who were soldiering away wondering if Leitrim would ever get anywhere!

So I guess what I'm trying to say is that as much as Curt Cignetti is right, that a good coach can make all the difference, good players are equally important - the real trick is to somehow have both in place at the same time!